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Fast Fracture Mechanisms in Metals

1) The document discusses different types of fast fracture that can occur in metals, including cleavage, intergranular fracture, and microvoid coalescence. 2) Intergranular fracture, also known as "rock candy" fracture, usually indicates embrittlement or processing problems and can occur via either cleavage or intergranular mechanisms depending on local stresses. 3) Figures 1-3 illustrate intergranular fracture in HY 80 steel charged with hydrogen, showing quasi-cleavage initiating cracks and the fracture changing to intergranular as cracks grow and relieve hydrogen pressure.

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87 views2 pages

Fast Fracture Mechanisms in Metals

1) The document discusses different types of fast fracture that can occur in metals, including cleavage, intergranular fracture, and microvoid coalescence. 2) Intergranular fracture, also known as "rock candy" fracture, usually indicates embrittlement or processing problems and can occur via either cleavage or intergranular mechanisms depending on local stresses. 3) Figures 1-3 illustrate intergranular fracture in HY 80 steel charged with hydrogen, showing quasi-cleavage initiating cracks and the fracture changing to intergranular as cracks grow and relieve hydrogen pressure.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF FAST FRACTURE IN METALS

The information that is presented here is generic, in the sense that fractographic features are
greatly affected by microstructural variation, composition and environment but, usually, the
following comments apply and the features illustrated will be apparent.
a) Micro-appearance
This resource will cover only simple examples of micro-features of cleavage, intergranular
fracture and microvoid coalescence.
Intergranular Fracture
Intergranular fracture (also known as 'rock candy' fracture in structures with a coarse grain size,
e.g. castings) is another low energy form of fracture that usually indicates either an
embrittlement problem or a processing problem (quench cracking). It is important to remember
that most forms of embrittlement (stress corrosion cracking, hydrogen, liquid metal) can occur
by either cleavage or intergranular mechanisms (or even MVC in some cases), depending on the
local stresses and the alloy and microstructure. In this respect see, for instance, reference 1
below. Figures 1 and 2 illustrate this for HY 80 pressure vessel steel (2Ni 1Cr Mo) which
has been charged with hydrogen under an applied tensile stress to induce small cracks. Quasicleavage occurs where the crack initiates (the stresses are highest), and the fracture changes to
intergranular as the crack grows and relieves the hydrogen pressure. The classic form of
intergranular fracture is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 1 Quasi-cleavage and IG fracture


Interestingly, IG fracture can also occur in fatigue by at least two mechanisms. The first occurs
by an environmental mechanism during fatigue crack growth, when the crack tip plastic zone
size becomes of the same order as the grain dimension. When cracks in steels are growing in a
moist air environment isolated IG facets are observed on the fatigue fracture surface in this range
of growth growths (which correspond to the 'knee' in the crack growth rate curve, at the
transition from the Paris law regime to the threshold regime of growth). Figure 4 illustrates such
IG facetting. The second mechanism occurs at low growth rates in low carbon interstitial-free
(IF) grades of steel used, for example, in car door panels (Figure 5). In both cases the local
plasticity is limited in extent to less than the grain size. In such cases (and in cases of brittle
fracture involving segregation of precipitates to grain boundaries) fine-scale MVC may be
observed on the IG facets (Figure 6).

Figure 4 Isolated IG facets of fatigue fracture surface


Other forms of intergranular fracture, e.g. interdentritic (see Figure 4, Part 3) and inter-pearlitic
(see Figure 7, Part 4), are also found and have been illustrated in other parts of this resource.
Try our your expertise in identifying the various mechanism of fracture in the example given in
the Activity.

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